Bananas

I praised them thus last week:

‘Bananas! They are just so wonderful, safe, comfortable, unchallenging – like coming home. Could this be the contented little chimp in us?’

You replied:

Doug Simpkinson: ‘You should be aware that bananas are radioactive, so that special glow you feel isn’t just from the texture.’

Chris Williams: ‘One word. Carbs.‘

Meanwhile . . .

Would you agree with me that left-handed Americans (of whom I am one) use a bit more hot water than right-handed people?

And which do you think weighs more: a pound of $45-a-pound shrimp from the Epicure market or a pound of $7.99-a-pound shrimp from the Publix 500 yards away (and, thank heavens, 400 yards closer to me)?

I discovered an amazing thing about the little shrimp. If you hold two tails together and dip – and then eat – them simultaneously, they’re still not remotely as large as the $45 shrimp, but they’re twice as large as they were, and just as tasty. This is the opposite of pill splitting. Shrimp doubling.

The reason I think we lefties use more hot water, at least marginally, is that hot water taps tend to be on the left, cold on the right, so we are more likely than our right-handed friends to reach for the hot water tap. Then again, a slightly higher proportion of lefties than righties may be concerned with the environment, and so might be more aware of not wasting water – particularly hot water, which also wastes energy. So maybe I’m all wet and we actually use a bit less hot water.

I run through all this as a way of writing something that, by comparison, will make my observations on bananas seem important, and well grounded. (Hey: you never get this stuff from Quicken.)

Tomorrow, or soon: Globalization